Saturday, November 15, 2014

I just discovered Terry Jones' BBC TV series Medieval Lives. It's informative and fun, in the best BBC series tradition pioneered by James Burke. Here's the first episode:

Jones is best known for being a member of Monty Python's Flying Circus, so I kept hoping that in this episode on the peasant he'd reference the Holy Grail movie, but no such luck. But if you've seen Grail then several parts of Medieval Lives will remind you of it. Including this, my favorite seen of the entire Grail - and that's saying something. Jones himself plays a (female) peasant in this scene.

DENNIS THE PEASANT

Listen, strange women lying in ponds distributing swords is no basis for a system of government. Supreme executive power derives from a mandate from the masses, not from some farcical aquatic ceremony. You can't expect to wield supreme executive power just cause some watery tart threw a sword at you. I mean, if I went round saying I was an Emperor just because some moistened bint lobbed a scimitar at me, they'd put me away.